Archive: News

Lansing Town Board members considered a draft of a moratorium on any new heavy industrial activities within the Town Wednesday, and set a public hearing.  Officials say that as soon as an agreed-upon draft is ready it will be made available to the public at the Town Hall and on the Town Web site.  Supervisor Kathy Miller asked board members to review the draft and decide at an April 25th meeting whether the wording is acceptable as-is or needs revision.

"If we are all on the same page we'll get it out to the public right away," Miller said.

	Village of Lansing Voters: All four candidates will be participating at a moderated Candidates Forum on April 22, 4:00 - 5:00 at the Ramada Inn, 2310 North Triphammer Road.

Julia Ann Kilgore Baker is running for a third term as Village of Lansing Trustee.  Baker has lived in the Village since 1998, and has two grown children with her husband Shefford.  She is a General Manager of ATC New York, a company specializing in Computer security research and development, information management, and computer forensics based at the Cornell Technology Park in the Village.

Baker says she wants to continue the high quality of life all residents enjoy in the Village.  She says she understands the issues facing the Village and has the resources to solve these issues.  She met with the Lansing Star last weekend to talk about her candidacy.

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	Village of Lansing Voters: All four candidates will be participating at a moderated Candidates Forum on April 22, 4:00 - 5:00 at the Ramada Inn, 2310 North Triphammer Road.

Brian Goodell is running for Village of Lansing Trustee.  He has lived in the Village for 14 years with his wife Nancy.  They have five children.  He is a Lead Coordinator for Care of Buildings on the west campus at Cornell University.  He served three years as President of UAW Local 2300, during which time he got the local chapter out of debt.

Goodell is running because he says villagers are not being adequately represented.  He says the 'status-quo' government has not had any opposition and he would like to give villagers a choice in the coming election.  He says he cares about what happens in the Village and at village meetings.  We talked about his candidacy last weekend.

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There will be a Village Election in Lansing on April 24 to elect two trustees. This is also the same date as the Republican Presidential Primary, so voters should be aware that their poll site may be different than usual for a Village election.

Voters in Lansing District 6 will vote at the Lansing Village Hall, 2405 N. Triphammer Rd. Voters in Lansing District 7 will vote at the Ithaca Reform Temple, 2550 N. Triphammer Rd.

The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) is advising motorists in Tompkins County of the following paving operations, scheduled to begin in early April, 2012:

Route 79 in the City of Ithaca: Beginning on April 2, Green Street (Route 79 Eastbound) and Seneca Street (Route 79 Westbound) will have their asphalt surfaces milled.  Work will begin on Green Street at the Meadow Street intersection and continue eastbound to Geneva Street.  Upon completion of the milling work on Green Street, it will resume on westbound Seneca Street back to the intersection of Meadow Street.

The Legislature, without dissent, accepted a nearly $10,000 grant from the Park Foundation to support a two-pronged effort by the Tompkins County Broadband Committee to engage the community and enable informed decisions about improving broadband accessibility throughout Tompkins County.  (Legislator Kathy Luz Herrera was excused.)

The $9,878 grant will underwrite the Committee’s ongoing series of six Community Engagement Forums, being held in various rural parts of the county, to gather information and public input concerning the need for broadband Internet access, and will fund a formal study of end-user broadband demand, surveying county residents, businesses, and institutions regarding broadband access and affordability.

State Senator Mike Nozzolio announced Tuesday that the 2012-13 State Budget, a budget that he worked closely with Governor Cuomo to enact, will invest over $32.4 million in nearly 20 infrastructure improvement projects across the Finger Lakes Region that will repair over 220 miles of roads and 10 bridges and create thousands of jobs. The funding is part of the statewide NY Works program, which was designed to reinvent state economic development by coordinating efforts to put New Yorkers back to work rebuilding New York state's infrastructure.

"The budget that was adopted last week was achieved by working in close partnership with my colleagues in the State Senate and Governor Cuomo to promote regional, long-term job development," said Nozzolio.

Mayor Donald Hartill announced Monday that the Village will be lowering its tax rate from $1.21 to $0.99 per $1,000 of assessed value.  Hartill says that the tax reduction is a result of the Village completing a series of major capital projects.   That means that most of the $2,446,197 budget will go toward maintaining village roads and services.

"I feel very comfortable in reducing our tax rate," Hartill told Village Trustees.  "One other village is close to our tax rate.  We either have the lowest village tax rate in New York State or close to the lowest.  I am quite pleased about that, especially since our roads don't have pot holes, and our water goes where it's supposed to go."

The notion of protecting one’s self, property and valuables is as old as human history.  Modern society recognizes the need to protect and guard just about everything imaginable by issuing deeds, titles, patents, and certificates.  All of us have some sense of ownership whether it is our homes, automobiles, items we have purchased or intellectual accomplishments.  Legal documents provide us with a feeling of security against theft or misuse. 

Personal as well as collective safety is vital to our way of life.  Our country has established law enforcement agencies to carry out this important duty.  The men and women who serve in these agencies do so with a high level of efficiency and professionalism. 

The Lansing Sewer Committee continued gatherring information on funding for the town sewer project Wednesday.  The proposed sewer is now at the phase where the cost to district residents will make or break the project.  Environmental Facilities Corporation's (EFC) Terry Deuel met with committee members to explain the process that could bring subsidized funding to the project.  Committee member Andy Sciarabba, Lansing Supervisor Kathy Miller, and engineer David Herrick met with EFC officials in a phone conference Monday, and Deuel agreed to attend the Wednesday meeting.

"We went through a lot of the questions we had about how to classify some of our institutions as residential or non-residential," Sciarabba told the committee members.  "We got a lot of information from them.  This is an opportunity for us to find out what it's all about and have questions answered today."

I'm rooting for the sewer project.  Even though my own home isn't near the proposed sewer district I am rooting for it to succeed, and here's why -- if the project is built it will help everyone in Lansing, and even in Tompkins County.

Sewer will help people who are in the district because it will provide an ongoing, eventually cost-effective way to get rid of waste.  It will raise their property values.  It will give them back the use of large portions of their land that must be used for septic systems.  And for those whose septic systems are failing or inadequate, it will give them a way to spread out the cost of replacing it over several years instead of having to pay all at once.

Lansing Town officials considered a moratorium on heavy industry Wednesday that will keep hydrofracking in Lansing at bay for at least a year while permanent solutions are put in place to protect the Town from potential adverse outcomes.  Lansing Supervisor Kathy Miller says that she wants to pass a moratorium law as soon as possible.

When asked when she would like to see a moratorium in place Miller replied, "Tomorrow.  It's urgent.  If we like (a draft of the proposed law) we could vote at the May meeting."